Apostasy and reform in Islam
Guest Commentary
Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
Professor, Upper Iowa University
March 21, 2007

This column is part of a dialogue that has been inspired by the Secular Islam Summit that took place in St. Petersburg, Fla., on March 4 and 5. See Mike Ghouse's initial Guest Commentary, a response by John Lobenstein and Mr. Ghouse's reply to Mr. Lobenstein.

I have been following discussions about the Secular Islam Summit before it took place as well as afterward. The summit was attended mostly by non-Muslims, ex-Muslims and only two to three avowed Muslims who appeared to have no connection with the mainstream Muslim community. There was a public declaration when the summit ended. The mainstream Muslim community ignored the summit for the most part, considering it an Islam-bashing propaganda sand-castled on Islamophobia.

Some mainstream Muslim communities and organizations condemned or dismissed this summit as irrelevant or even malicious. I also read the exchange between Mr. Robert Spencer of the Jihad Watch website, one of the patrons of the summit, who needs little introduction, and Mr. Mike Ghouse of the World Muslim Congress, an American Muslim committed to engage the Muslim community in upholding and promoting the ideals of pluralism, justice and peace.

Regardless of the way mainstream Muslims may view this summit and might even dismiss it, some serious underlying issues and problems might be glossed over, which is the focus of this write-up. Relevant also is that it seeks a common ground, to identify the points of tangency and convergence and collectively build consensus toward common good.

First, it is important to identify and acknowledge non-Muslims as stakeholders in a broader sense in issues pertaining to Islam. All stakeholders may not formulate or implement a decision or agenda, but an entity should consider their concerns because of both moral and self-interest factors. Muslims often contend that Islam is purely an internal matter; they are unwilling to listen to outsiders or to those who are critical of Islam, let alone Islam-bashers, Islamophobes or abusers of Islam and the Prophet. It is a common tendency to think the worst of those who are critical. However, while effective reforms are internally driven, critics may offer pertinent input that many devotees may not. Indeed, this reality is often ignored.

Symposium: One Islam?
By Jamie Glazov

Spencer: Jamie, there is absolutely no doubt that in many areas of the Islamic world, for many reasons a cultural Islam has evolved that deemphasizes the militancy of the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example, and often contains significant syncretistic elements. This is true in varying ways in West Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. However, Thomas Haidon is correct when he notes that “these pluralistic Islamic practices, I believe, are at risk,” and that there is a movement fostering the “total Arabisation of Islam in Indonesia” and elsewhere. This will involve, as Haidon says, “tolerant cultural practices” being “subsumed by harsher practices.”

Haidon is also unfortunately correct that “more moderate models of Islam may be susceptible and vulnerable to more conservative models” – and this is part of the Arabization phenomenon. This is because the proponents of Arabization and radicalization present themselves as the exponents of a “true” and “pure” Islam, purged of the cultural syncretism that, because it lacks foundation in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, they are able to portray as illegitimate. For instance, in his delightful book The Caliph’s House, Tahir Shah recounts how Wahhabi recruiters from Saudi Arabia set up a trailer in a shantytown in Casablanca, from which they endeavored to recruit the locals for the jihad.